Carbon Dioxide Sensitivity in Panic Anxiety
- 1 September 1986
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in Archives of General Psychiatry
- Vol. 43 (9), 900-909
- https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1986.01800090090013
Abstract
• One hypothesis that could account for the anxiogenic response to breathing air supplemented with carbon dioxide seen in panic anxiety patients is that panic patients might have abnormally high central medullary chemoreceptor sensitivity. Chemoreceptor sensitivity was assessed by using a rebreathing technique to measure the ventilatory response to CO2 in 14 medication-free patients with agoraphobia and panic attacks and 23 healthy subjects. Ventilatory response to CO2 was similar in patients and controls (mean±SEM, 1.58 ± 0.16 vs 1.58±0.14 L/min/mm Hg), suggesting that abnormal chemoreceptor sensitivity does not explain the behavioral sensitivity of panic patients to CO2. Anxiety ratings Increased markedly during rebreathing both in patients and controls; anxiety increases were significantly greater in patients than In healthy subjects matched for age, sex, and rebreathing duration. Alprazolam treatment in eight patients markedly attenuated anxiety increases during rebreathing. Differences in anxiogenic sensitivity to CO2 between patients and controls may be due to differences in the regulation of noradrenergic or other neuronal systems.This publication has 66 references indexed in Scilit:
- The impact of grief on ventilatory controlAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, 1985
- Response to hyperventilation in a group of patients with panic disorderAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, 1984
- Ventilatory Response to CO2. I. A Psychobiologic Marker of the Respiratory System*Psychosomatic Medicine, 1984
- Hypercapnia and hypoxia: Chemoreceptor-mediated control of locus coeruleus neurons and splanchnic, sympathetic nervesBrain Research, 1981
- II. New evidence for a locus coeruleus-norepinephrine connection with anxietyLife Sciences, 1979
- The effect of CO2 on monoamine metabolism in rat brainNaunyn-Schmiedebergs Archiv für experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie, 1977
- Ventilatory Response to Carbon Dioxide Inhalation in DepressionPsychosomatic Medicine, 1976
- CO2 response: stimulus definition and limitationsChest, 1976
- Dynamic respiratory response to abrupt change of inspired CO2 at normal and high PO2.Journal of Applied Physiology, 1973
- Respiratory recovery from CO 2 breathing in intact and chemodenervated awake dogs.Journal of Applied Physiology, 1973